


Denotation/ Connotation

by DreamLogic



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, At least at the start, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamLogic/pseuds/DreamLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her confrontation with Delphine, Cosima struggles to come to terms with what happened as well as what trying to figure out what the aftermath will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. World View Informed By Pragmatic Understanding ( or why Information structure is as important as semantics)

**Author's Note:**

> No the best summary but this is what happens when frustration over a linguistics assignment meets Orphan Black in my head

Trust, it’s tricky to really define because it means so many different things to different people. That’s the thing about language, nothing is definite, nothing’s static and, outside of the dictionary, meaning is subjective, it’s personal. Words are dangerous, the uncertainty that surrounds them has the potential to destroy everything if you let them. They can build you up and tear everything down just as easily. They have the potential to manipulate everything around them and people have no idea how much power they wield on a daily basis.

To Cosima, trust was almost synonymous with loyalty and truth and family, friendship and honesty, love. It must mean something different to Delphine. Maybe within her definition of the word her actions are completely okay. But what does she know? She never was very good with words. 

‘I wanted to trust you!’ Screaming out her disappointment in herself, in Delphine, in this whole fucked-up situation seemed like a good idea at the time, but those five little words had revealed her for the fool that she’d been. Sarah had warned her to stay away from Delphine, had told her that she was not to be trusted, and now, sitting on the couch in Felix’s apartment, staring into space and wondering what the hell to do now. 

She can’t stop playing Delphine’s words to her over and over again in her mind. What other words have a different meaning to her? What does love mean to her? Because it obviously doesn’t mean honesty like it does to her. Would she have ever told her the truth if she hadn’t confronted her? What the fuck even is truth? Is that subjective too? Because there are so many things that she thought was true when she now knows are not. Her whole fucking existence is built upon a lie for fuck’s sake. Human cloning. Nothing is ever fucking simple is it!

She throws her head back in frustration, taking a shuddering breath trying to hold the tears that threaten to fall at bay because really, where the fuck was any of this getting her? She doesn’t have time to mope, she could be in actual danger and then this fucking illness that she has, but the words keep playing over and over again of their own volition, like they’re the most important thing that she’s got going on.

‘I wasn’t supposed to fall for you, but I did!’ That’s what she’d said. Love, she was talking about love, wasn’t she? She said that she can’t lie about it. She said that it would be impossible, but what does love mean to her? What does lie mean? She doesn’t know what the French word for lie is, maybe it means something different, something less akin to betrayal than the English, because of it doesn’t, she really is fucked. 

She doesn’t know what the fuck she was thinking because really, what the fuck does she really know anything the woman who has infiltrated her life? Their whole relationship had been built upon deception, she had known that from the start, known who the other girl was and what she wanted, they were built on a broken foundation, she knew this, but she thought that she’d fixed it; she thought that what they had together meant something to Delphine, that it meant enough to her that she wouldn’t destroy it completely for the sake of a job. Apparently she was wrong. And now she’s put herself and her sister in danger because, who knows what the fuck she told Leekie.

She can’t help but feel so fucking stupid, because really, this is the only way it could have gone. Life is not some fairy tale. 

The sort of duplicity that can be achieved through language has always confused Cosima, she lacks the ability that some people seem to have to be able to command the language with ease, the ability that some have to re-shape the world with just a few words. She’s always had more luck dealing with the concrete yet seemingly endless possibilities that science affords. For the most part, the facts don’t lie, they simply evolve and with everything else that has happened she appreciates the certainty in this part of her life at least. Appreciated. The fact that they can tell her and her _clones_ apart by their DNA has really fucked her over. She doesn’t even really get how that is possible, it probably shouldn’t be possible, but it is. Then again human cloning shouldn’t be possible but it obviously is, so she guesses that anything is possible within the parameters of what she thought was the impossible.

 

* * *

 

She has no idea how long she’s been sitting there for but quite frankly shit has got too serious too quickly for her liking. She knows that that’s probably her fault, because like the fucking idiot she is she trusted the enemy. So stupid! And now something that she’s done has left them exposed, and she can’t believe that it’s happened. Why did she do that? She still can’t believe it. 

‘Cosima,’ she hears Sarah say, and in that second everything shifts back into focus. Finally she finds a respite from the condemnation of her own thoughts. 

‘Stop beating yourself up, yeah.’ Sarah says as she sits down next to her, in a voice that Cosima has never heard before, one she just knows is reserved for people she trusts, for her family. The thought that Sarah considers her family warms her. ‘We’ve got bigger things to worry about now.’

Of course. Leekie. The warm feeling from moments before vanishes, replaced again by the feeling of dread that she just can’t shake.

No doubt now that he knows that they’re self-aware. Contacting both her and Allison in broad daylight seemingly without any pretence had proved that. And now what? He wants them to willingly participate in his experiment with no catch? Yeah, somehow this sudden shift in the party line doesn’t sit quite right with her. 

Allison, however, obviously doesn’t share her doubts. Although, she supposes that she would probably do the same thing in her shoes. Protect her family, do what she thinks is the best thing to make this whole mess just go away. She respects that, even if she isn’t sure that signing that contract is the best way to do it. But what does she know? She’s already failed her family by getting them into this mess.

Do recently discovered genetic identicals count as family? She can’t fathom any actual definition of the word where that’s the case, but as she’s realising more and more definitions can be changed. They can be bent to fit what you need it to mean and in this situation friends doesn’t quite seem like the right word. She knows for a fact that she probably would have never even considered speaking to Allison if not for this whole mess, so no friends is definitely not the right word. Family is the best description, the only description she can come up with for what they are. Even if she can’t help but feel that she has already failed to meet the expectations of what this entails. Like she said, family protects family, but she fucked up big time and now they’re all in trouble and she hasn’t a clue what to do about it.


	2. Need it to mean more than it does.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Delphine texts her to say that she’s coming, Cosima is honestly surprised because, yeah the woman basically professed her love to her but, despite the woman’s ardent proclamation she still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that she was telling the truth…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This just wouldn’t get on the page

When Delphine texts her to say that she’s coming, Cosima is honestly surprised because, yeah the woman basically professed her love to her but, despite the woman’s ardent proclamation she still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that she was telling the truth. In all honesty she figured that she’d take the opportunity to drop the pretence and run back to Leekie while she had the chance.

 Apparently not.

She hasn’t.

Instead she’s hopped a pane a followed her and Cosima can’t help but think in light of this that maybe, just maybe Delphine hadn’t been lying about this. About them.

She tries not to get her hopes up. God knows that they were up before only to come tumbling down spectacularly. Then again she always knew that she was setting herself up for the fall, she just couldn’t help herself. She hopes that it will be different this time, now that she’s surrounded by family, now that she knows that going down that particular road only ends in hurt but she wouldn’t count on it. Delphine just has a way of getting under her skin, she doesn’t know why.

That’s why when Delphine shows up looking to stay, looking to make things better and help she just can’t seem to keep them down.

She may have lied to her in the past, may have betrayed and hurt her, but she loves her. She can’t help it.  And anyway, with all the shit happening at the moment, they need all the help they can get. Yes she may have worked for the enemy, may have studied them but she obviously knows valuable information, information that can help them and quite frankly beggars can’t be choosers. Especially when it could be the difference between life and death.

She’s still glad that Sarah isn’t there for her arrival though, because Felix is right it would not have been pretty.

She’s learned pretty quickly that Sarah takes family very seriously. You only have to see her with Felix or hear her talk about her daughter to see that, she supposes you learn to appreciate family more when you’ve had to fight to have one, and she was part of her family now. Sisters. And Delphine had hurt her, she couldn’t really see Sarah taking that lying down. So yeah, some time to prepare for that particular introduction was probably a good idea.

No matter how much she tries to keep them down, however, she just can’t help herself. Delphine’s there so that has to mean something and yeah, she could double cross them and betray them again but she will not consider that a possibility. She can’t think about that happening when they need her help.

She needs her help.

As much as she wants to ignore it, the fact that she’s ill isn’t going to go away by itself. Even if she can’t help with their Leekie problem, she has a doctorate in immunology and studied their biology, if anyone can help cure her, its Delphine.

 

* * *

 

They’re sitting side by side on the couch, just barely touching and Cosima can’t get enough. She can’t believe they’re there, sitting that close together, making crazy science together just liked she had imagined they would. She has to pinch herself to make sure that she’s not dreaming. After she left Minnesota she never thought she’d have the chance to be this close to Delphine again, that the only way she’d ever see the other woman again would be in some DYAD lab as her test subject.

 She’s never been more glad to be wrong in her life.

She really hopes that she’s wrong. That Delphine is telling the truth. But there’s that word again.

Truth.

She’s still not completely sure what it means to her, what she wants it to mean to Delphine. She’s so scared that if she lets herself decide that she’ll be disappointed. Again. She’s not sure she could take it.

She’s so lost in her own mind that she doesn’t notice the downturn of her companion’s mouth, the quiet concern radiating from the woman beside her.

‘What’s wrong, Ma Chérie? You are off in the clouds again?’

She smiles in what she hopes is a convincing manner to reassure the other woman.

‘Sorry.’ Cosima breathed out ‘just thinking, didn’t mean to worry you.’

As she turns back to look at the mass of barely understandable research in front of her Cosima feels Delphine tentatively place her hand on her shoulder. It’s the first real physical contact they’ve had since their fight. And as she feels her start to slowly stroke circles with her thumb, for the first time since everything went to shit, Cosima feels like everything will be okay. They just need to figure this thing out, but that’s easier said than done. What the hell does it mean?

It’s basically a whole other language to decipher, and quite frankly she’s been having enough trouble with English recently that she isn’t sure that she can handle another.

But then Delphine has the cipher. The letters and numbers that she knows we assigned to her, to reveal her, show what she is. And more importantly a reminder of just how much Delphine is willing to help them.

Now they just have to figure out how to use them.

 

* * *

 

 324B21

For a moment she thinks that it’s funny that, in the eyes of these people, she and her sisters can be reduced to something so simplistic.

The moment that they finally decipher it it stops being funny.

There’s a patent in her, in their DNA.

Yes the tags made for easier identification but that’s not all they did. It wasn’t just for identification, they could have used their names for that.

It was to dehumanise them.

It’s easier to forget that someone’s a person when you strip them of their name, of their identity, and reduce them to some numbers on a page. It makes it all about the experiment.

It makes Cosima sick to her stomach when she remembers that Delphine was, could still be one of them. Hell, she was so happy to see her that she forgot to ask. She just assumed so now she just has to hope it won’t all blow up in her face.

At least figuring out the code has made some things easier. They know now that they can’t sign the contracts that they’re being offered. That has just made the decision to not sign the contract for them. She still has other problems that she hopes Delphine can help her with. She needs Delphine to be able to help her. She has the feeling she’s screwed if she can’t.

She knows that she’s probably piling information on too quickly. They’ve only just figured out what was going on with their DNA but she knows that if she doesn’t get this off her chest now she never will.

She takes a deep breath.

‘I’m sick, Delphine.’

In that moment she doesn’t quite think sick is the right word, it doesn’t sound serious enough, like she just has the flu or something and will be better in no time at all, but she can’t think for possibly terminally ill with an as yet undetermined probably genetic pulmonary infection, so that’s the word she goes for.    

It will have to be enough.

For a moment she regrets saying it. Saying it out loud, saying it to somebody else somehow makes it more real. As if finally acknowledging it gives it more credence than periodically coughing her lungs up already had.

She risks a look at Delphine.

She doesn’t really know what she was expecting, but the pain she sees painted clearly on the other woman’s face puts the fears she had about the veracity of her feelings to rest, at least.

It settles the matter of her allegiance in Cosima’s mind, and even though everything is falling apart she lets herself relax and enjoy the other woman’s company fully.

Finally.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Also there will be another part of this soon, and possibly more where Delphine actually features but it’s not coming quickly enough to post right now.


End file.
